Arrested Development: No Bigscreen Reunion, Yet

by Trevor Kimball, September 10, 2007

Arrested Development is one of those series that was beloved by critics and a core group of fans but just never caught on with the general public. The FOX network kept the show on for three seasons hoping that the sitcom’s ratings would pick up but, after three seasons, pulled the plug. The final four episodes aired on February 10, 2006, opposite the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.

Since that time, the number of Arrested Development devotees has been expanded by DVD sales and they’re craving new exploits of the crazy Bluth family. When it was announced that the new film by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking) would star Arrested Development’s former Michael and George Micheal Bluth, fans were hoping for a mini-reunion. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

The film Juno centers around a young pregnant teen (Ellen Page), the baby’s father (Michael Cera) and a couple who want to adopt the baby (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). Though Bateman and Cera both star in the movie, they don’t actually appear on-screen at the same time. Bateman recently told MTV, “We don’t have any scenes together, but I made sure I was on the set a few times to watch him [Cera] do his scenes because I miss watching him do what he does. He’s so talented, and he does such a good job in this movie.”

The idea of a big-screen reunion between Bateman and his on-screen son was considered though. Bateman laughed, “At one point we were joking that he would walk by in the background of a scene and I would do a double-take as if to be like, ‘I know that guy from somewhere!’ But we never ended up doing that.”

Bateman does hold out hope however that the members of the crazy Bluth may reunite, saying, “We would all love to get back together and maybe do something with the show in the future, but I don’t know when — or how — that would happen. Maybe it could be as a movie or something.” Bateman suggested that, with Cera’s recent rise to stardom and the popularity of similar offbeat comedies, the time might be right for an Arrested Development return. “We’ll see. We’ll let the adults figure it out.”

If that does happen, fans can feel assured that a Bluth reunion would be very similar to the series — including bleeping out the profanities. Bateman said, “I know we had specific conversations about [continuing to bleep the bad language] in the event that the show went to Showtime. Would we eliminate the bleeps on the profanity? Across the board, everybody said, ‘No. You keep the bleeps in.’ It’s funnier. I don’t think we would go away from what it [the series] was, anymore than maybe some content here and there. But as far as the execution and the format, I think we’d probably stay pretty much the same.”

For now, we’ll have to settle for seeing Bateman and Cera (though not acting together) in movie theaters. The comedy film Juno is appearing in film festivals right now and is scheduled to be released in U.S. movie theaters in December. Stay tuned!